2 companies at Port San Antonio competing in contest to help feds address priorities in space

SA-based Knight Aerospace and Astroport were selected as finalists for the Hyperspace Challenge

SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio is home to so many new, exciting and technologically advanced companies.

Two local companies at Port San Antonio are actually competing in the Hyperspace Challenge, a program through the U.S. Space Force.

“We’re going to win,” Bianca Rhodes, the president and CEO of Knight Aerospace, said.

Knight Aerospace is headquartered at Port San Antonio and works to deliver life-saving cargo from point A to point B.

“Aerospace has been just about transporting patients from one place to the other and always having to stabilize them on the ground before they can get on a flight,” Rhodes said. “So we transformed that so you can actually treat the patient in the air and have a whole lot better medical outcome and provide just a better environment for the caregivers.”

And Knight Aerospace is ready for the next step: space travel.

“Space medicine is just the next frontier. It allows us to do that even more quickly,” Rhodes said.

They are one of two local companies taking part in a national competition. The other is Astroport Space Technologies.

“The Hyperspace Challenge is a program put on by the Space Force, and they’re saying we need to solve the world’s biggest problems when it comes to space, and we’re looking for companies to help us do that — companies like Knight Aerospace,” Luke Perkins, the director of engineering and innovation, said.

There are exciting concepts here in the Alamo City and soon it will be around the world.

“We’re hoping to get the attention of some of the big players. Space X, Blue Origin and of course, the U.S. Space Force is involved with all of this,” Perkins said.

And as far as Knight Aerospace and space travel, it may only become more and more popular and accessible.

“Like with every technology, it seems ridiculous. It seems expensive right up until the point. It’s not. And then all of a sudden it becomes kind of normal,” Perkins said.

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About the Authors:

Max Massey is the GMSA weekend anchor and a general assignments reporter. Max has been live at some of the biggest national stories out of Texas in recent years, including the Sutherland Springs shooting, Hurricane Harvey and the manhunt for the Austin bomber. Outside of work, Max follows politics and sports, especially Penn State, his alma mater.